This first Emanuelle film is only available in Italian, and to be honest my Italian leaves a lot to be desired so I only barely understood it. It's a classier, artier version of the later Emmanuelle films that basically relates a day in the life of a very liberated but moody and sullen young woman as she travels around Rome having sexual trysts with various strange men (including James Bond villain Adolf Celli)and at least one woman. Emanuelle is played by Erica Blanc, an absolutely gorgeous Italian actress famous for her sundry appearances in many Italian gialli and horror movies of the era. Since this was the late 60's her nude scenes were only brief (but very tantalizing) and her fumbling, softcore sex scenes were pretty well fumbled. But this might be a more honest film than the later French Emmanuelle films at least because, though it is generally light-hearted and comical at times, it doesn't really make the claim that sexual liberation is the key to happiness.
Blanc would never return to this role, but she is actually a lot better than Syvia Kristel who later made the character famous. As for Laura "Black Emmanuelle" Gemser, there is really no basis for comparison as those movies were sheer exploitative trash while this one is more an arty, stylized document of this swinging, psychodelic European era (and which of those you like better is largely a matter of personal taste--I dig 'em both). One thing's for sure I'd rather watch this movie ten more times, even if it was dubbed into Pig Latin with Esperanto subtitles, than sit through an episode of "Emmanuelle in Space" or one of those other modern-day Emmanuelle adaptations. Not a great movie, but I'm glad I finally saw it.
